Odyssey: the most famous journey of classical times. An update

Odysseus' journey 

From the beginning of my journey towards Cama's revival and with the aim of finding content and inspiration for new ways of doing business in the arts & crafts industry, I have felt like a modern Odysseus on a long adventure. 

I suppose I am navigating upstream as there is a current "cancel culture" against classical authors in the United States including Homer, better known as "#Disrupttexts". It originated last year as a movement on Twitter. 

Such a "politically correct" extreme trend has brought to banning the Odyssey book from the Lawrence High School in Massachusetts as an example. 

The #Disrupttexts movement has reached people in Italy, too. Indeed I have recently read an article by an Italian psychologist who had a similar attitude towards Odysseus: he didn't approve of the way the hero treated the women in the book. My question is: what if those women were personifications of events and it is all a matter of interpreting rhetorical figures? 

As a matter of fact, my experience is that most arguments and misinterpretations among people are caused by taking things literarily. Therefore the term "literarily" is not by any means a proper adverb to use to evaluate literature either. Aren't cultural tools at our disposal to bring peace?  

Nevertheless, despite the refusal of classical books such as the Odyssey, I feel like my getting inspired by Latin and Greek literature was the way to go to get in touch with our origins in times of rebirth. After all, the Odyssey was the civic education book of Greek children and this piece of history cannot be erased. 

However, the Odyssey is not the only famous book about a life journey model. Next to it, there is the less acclaimed Aeneid by Virgil, which brought its hero's descent to the foundation of Rome. 

Last year writer and scholar Andrea Marcolongo rediscovered and analyzed the Aeneid by Virgil inspired by the beginning of the Covid-19 lockdown. She has realized that the Aeneid fits perfectly with the pandemic time we are experiencing; Aeneas is at the center as "a modern example of those who are defeated, who have lost everything except the ability to resist and to hope", writes the author. 

The book was published last September with the title "La Lezione di Enea" (Aeneas's lesson), which I am reading right now. Thankful to the article by @CostanzaRdO in the number 477 "la Lettura" attachment to Italian national newspaper Corriere Della Sera for the updates about the #Disrupttexts. 

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